TSSAA A-AA State Track & Field Championships Meet Recap

Another impressive performer in the A-AA girls was Rebecca
Story of Christian Academy of Knoxville who took the 800 meter race in the
second fastest time of the day in 2:16.64.This was a very close race with Dresden's Loral Winn who was runner up
in 2:17.47 and made Rebecca work for that win.Rebecca also took care of business in the 3200 where she worked a bit to
overtake Gigi Maddox (Fred J. Page) and post a 10:53.33 and the fastest 3200 of
the meet.And not to be a slacker, she
also ran the 1600 in 5:06.57 and was able to get a 10 point win in the race as
well.She just does not stop running,
does she!!

And if you were watching the relays on Thursday, the A-AA
4x200 was a fun one to watch with the top three teams all within less than a
quarter of a second apart.East
Nashville (1:44.95) was third, Lipscomb Academy (1:44.84) second and
Chattanooga Christian School squeaked out a win by a hair with a 1:44.72!Fun race to watch!

Camryn Bowman of Signal Mountain made her senior year
memorable by getting a double win by taking the shot in 39-2.5 by almost four
feet from the runner up.The Discus was
also just as impressive with a 133-0 throw to take the top podium spot again
for this division.And something I'm not
sure I've seen before, the second place finisher has the same first name,
Camryn.Camryn Koroma of Elizabethton
(35-4.25 shot, 117-10 discus) was the runner up, and her throws were impressive
as well, but the other Camryn just was better this Thursday.

The boys A-AA division started out with some tight races in
the field events.The pole vault was
close with two guys clearing 13-0.Bobby
Willingham of CPA was second and Paul Schwarzentraub of L & N Stem by
virtue of misses as they both cleared a strong 13-0.Taking the win in this very exciting field
event was Lipscomb Academy's Garrett McQuain with a 13-6 jump.

The high jump was almost similar to the pole vault with two
guys clearing 6-4.Timetric Hodges of
Maplewood, by way of his two misses at the 6-2 mark took second place and Ryan
Charles captured the win.Ryan was also
the Decathlon winner earlier in the week where he totaled 5739 points in that
event.And Ryan was the fourth place
finisher with a strong vault of 12-0 that just happened to be overshadowed by
the excitement ahead of him in that event.

This seems to be sounding like a broken record but the A-AA
long jump was also a very tightly contested event.Three guys jumping longer than 22'.Kortland Martin of Humbolt jumped 22-3 to get
third.Quinton Poole of Creek Wood
jumped 22-4.25 to get the runner up spot.Then, and this is really quite amazing to see, Joseph Norwood of
Brainard jumped 22-4.50 to get the win.Yep, a half inch was how close this event was.You know, you expect to see really close
races in the 100M dash and events like that, but this division really has some
depth and some amazingly close performances in the field events!That's a heck of a way to start out the day
for the division.

And speaking of close, the 110 hurdles for these guys was,
well, really close!Brevin Sims of
Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences was the winner in a time of 14.84
and Michael McMahon of Fred J. Page was right there next to him in 14.85!Very close.The 4x200 was the same with Austin-East in 1:27.62 and Pearl Cohn in
1:27.68.And really, it was exciting to
watch these.The 100M dash, well of
course the 100M dash wash close... geez, everything else was here.... Was won in
11.08 by Jeremy McDowell (Maplewood) and in second was Red Bank's Kedrick
Wilbanks in 11.09.Yep.Close.

Well, I suppose this is the state championships and the best
of the best and so you expect races to be close.The 400M dash was a photo finish with the
posted time at 48.47 by both NIckson Pierre of Pearl Cohn and Prep Academy's
Emmanuel Bynu.Taking it out to the next
decimal place put Nickson as the eventual winner, but it took that camera that
can take 2000 shots a second to help figure that out!Ok, before I run out of space, all these
races were close for this division.Georde Goodwyn of Knoxville Catholic won the 800 by 0.46 of a
second.Jake Renfree the 3200 by only
about 4 seconds.And the last race of
the day, the 4x400 relay, was won by Liberty Tech in an extremely close 0.10
second.They ran 3:20.48 to win and
Maplewood ran 3:2058 for second.Great
racing, great field for this division.

The boys team standings ended with Knoxville Catholic
winning the overall title.That title
actually came out of the second to last event, the 3200M run.In that race, Knoxville catholic tallied up
24 points when Georde Goodwyn came in third in 10:22.46, and Devin Sullivan
runner up in 10:09.66 and sophomore Jake Renfree getting the win in
10:05.39.That certainly is proof that
in the world of Athletics, do not count out any race at any time of the meet...
now that's excitement!!